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Mei

Short Form, third prize

In the mountain village Hangsha in rural China, Shi Long Mei (13) dreams about one day becoming a famous singer. She sees her parents only once a year. While they work in the big cities, she studies tirelessly at school, from six in the morning to ten in the evening, to create the opportunities her parents never got.

Since 1978, China has experienced the largest internal migration in human history. Nearly 160 million people have left rural areas in order to seek work in the cities. But the rapidly increasing urbanization comes at a substantial personal cost. More than 60 million Chinese children are left behind in rural areas with their parents forced to move hundreds of miles away for work.

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"Something about Mei brought us along and I think it was the human side of it, really, there was no trick, there was no animation, no kind of special videography, it was just tender editing that brought us along."—Duy Linh Tu, Short Form jury chair